as he raged out a torrent of expletives
against the Boer who had fired that shot.

"Let me look at your face, my lad," said Dickenson. "Are you much
hurt?"

"Hurt, sir? No! It's only just as if some one had chucked a handful of
dust into my eyes."

"Let me see."

A few deft applications of a finger removed the trouble from the man's
eyes, and he smiled again, and then listened attentively to his
officer's questions.

"Oh, it's as you think best, sir," he said at last; "but I wouldn't give
up. We don't want to. All we're thinking about is giving the enemy
another sickening for what they've done."

Dickenson crawled away to the other man--away to his right--to find him
literally glowering when spoken to.

"What do the others say, sir--the sergeant and my comrade?"

"Never mind them," replied Dickenson. "I want to know how you feel."

"Well, sir," was the reply, "about an hour ago I felt regular sick of
it, and that it would be about like throwing our lives away to hold
out."

"That it would be better to surrender and chance our fate in a Boer
prison?"

"Something of that sort, sir."

"And how do you feel now?"

"Just as if they've regularly got my dander up, sir. I only want to
shoot as long as we've got a cartridge left. I'd give up then, for
they'd never wait for us to get at them with the bayonet."

Dickenson said no more, but returned to his old place, watching the
galloping Boers, who had now gone far enough to carry out their plans,
and were stopping by twos to dismount and wait, this being continued
till the little English party formed the centre of a very wide circle.
Then a signal was made from the starting-point, and firing commenced.

Fortunately for the party it was at a tremendously long-range, for,
after the way in which the enemy had suffered in regard to their ponies,
they elected to keep what they considered to be outside the reach of the
British rifles; and no reply was made, Dickenson declining to try and
hit the poor beasts which formed the Boer shelter in a way which would
only inflict a painful wound without disabling them from their masters'
service.

"It would be waste of our cartridges, sergeant," he said.

"Yes, sir," was the reply; "perhaps it's best to wait. They'll be
tempted into getting closer after a bit. Getting tired of it if they
don't hit us, and make us put up a white flag for the doctor. Look at
them. Oh, it's nonsense firing at such a distance. The